Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Last week I bought a vintage Thompson player piano for $250. Beautiful mahogany wood. Everything seems to work fine and all of the notes still ring. No cracks on the piano. The sound board looks solid. Some of the ivory keys are missing. Everything works. I was told by piano's previous owner that it hadn't been tuned up in over 50 years. Yet it sounds remarkably well for it's age despite the lack of tuning.

50 piano rolls came with the piano. Most of the titles I don't even recognize. Some titles are downright racist and demeaning but that's how the era was like. Some minor adjustment is needed to add a slight tension to the reel to help keep the piano roll paper lined up and not crinkle along the edge. I'll figure it out on how to do that. Pumping the pedals isn't quite perfect but it works and takes a bit of doing and adjusting the playing speed.

I plan on posting some of my videos playing some ragtime pieces now that I have a real vintage player piano.

PORTLAND RAGTIME SOCIETY

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About Me....

I was born with a hearing loss in both ears due to the 1960s outbreak of the Rubella (German Measles). My left ear has a profound hearing loss around 92 dB while my right but good ear has a hearing loss at 70 dB on average across all frequencies. I wear a hearing aid in my right ear only. It continues to help me tremendously with my piano playing with the feedbacks and allowing me to enjoy my own piano playing.

I began playing the piano at age 7 and I haven't stopped since then except with several breaks over the years with school, marriage, kids, my career, etc. Though I play mostly the Ragtime variety. As far as I know, I'm the only deaf/hh pianist who love to play ragtime, novelty pieces, and early Jazz if I ever get to it.

This blog is not just solely about piano ragtime but will include other deaf and hard of hearing pianists who are not ragtime pianists. I hope you will enjoy my blogs, links and free ragtime sheets for download.